At Dholavira in India archaeologists found a three-metre 'signboard' of ten Indus signs — and no one can read it. The Indus script is still undeciphered: not a single bilingual inscription has been found.

2000 BC

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The event

• Rise of Mohenjo-daroc. 2500 BC · Mohenjo-daro. Mohenjo-daro became one of the largest cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, with a grid of streets, brick houses, covered drains and the Great Bath. Its script remains undeciphered to this day.

20th century BC

More amazing facts

• 2100 BC The first king in the Sumerian King List ruled for 28,800 years.
• 2100 BC · 1754 BC Hammurabi's code was not the first.
• 2100 BC East Asia's oldest observatory is about 4,000 years old. At Taosi in China, slots in an ancient structure seem to have framed the sunrise on the solstices, helping keep a solar calendar.
• 2100 BC The war chariot was probably invented not in Egypt or Mesopotamia but in the southern Urals.
• 2000 BC The oldest known noodles are about 4,000 years old. The thin yellow strands were found in 2005 in an upturned pot at Lajia on the Yellow River, a village buried by mudflows.
• 1900 BC The oldest known joke is a fart joke.

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